Opposites attract?

... some ways the exact opposite of Gnosticism. Anybody feel strongly one way or another?

Message 1 of 53
, Feb 7, 2003

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>>I was primarily
curious what PMCV meant by eastern religion being in some
ways the "exact opposite" of Gnosticism.

Anybody feel strongly one way or
another?<<Cari#7129

Evidently I did, though it’s taken me some time to get my
ideas together.I think my train of
thought jumped track once the discussion diverged in the direction of
disagreement that Gnosticism had its origins in eastern thought.Frankly, I hadn’t even noticed that the
subject had arisen before it was beaten down.

BTW, forgive my use of “eastern” above, but as there’s
already been a fair deal of generalization going on, I really don’t feel that
it’s out of line.After a two-page
post admonishing care in using the term, I’m almost afraid to ever again tell
anyone that I’m from “eastern” North Carolina.Brushing aside the proscriptions of
Political Correctness, I still couldn’t refer to this area as “oriental” as
there is already a town in the region by that very name.What’s a fella to do?Besides, as Ernst was generous enough to
point out in post #7128 (and as witnessed in previous argu-. . . er . . .
conversations here), depending on who’s involved in a given discussion, even the
term “Gnosticism” can be laden with ambiguity.

Anyway, it was only in backtracking through this entire
thread that I actually finished reading the link Cari posted by Herbert Christian Merillat
which compared Buddhism and Gnosticism.O-kay then, now I see it——in the very last line:

The Indian systems regard such reunion as a
liberation from the round of rebirths on this earth, and in this sense take a
negative view of the cosmos -- as "Thomas" frequently did and as Gnostics
generally did. This is one of the surest sign of an Indian influence on Thomas
and other forms of Gnosticism.[sic]

Indeed,
while I agree with the first part of that assertion, I see no reason to jump to
the author’s conclusion that such similarity establishes any sort of
provenance.At the same time,
having said that, I also have never liked having my options closed.I’m reminded of Central and South
American archaeology classes I took with a certain professor who was adamant
that there was no “need” for transoceanic voyages to account for similarities in
such things as art and architecture among distinct cultures.While I agree with that opinion
(technically), I always resented his implication that evidence of prototypes
within a particular cultural setting unequivocally negated the possibility of
such explorations ever having occurred.Just because it wasn’t necessary doesn’t mean it never
happened.

It took
a while to convince many supposed experts in the field that the westward
expansion of Norsemen wasn’t confined to Iceland and Greenland.Today the notion is far more commonly
accepted.Now, discoveries in
Brazil point to the Americas being inhabited by humans (racially related to the
Australian Aborigines) long before the opening of the Bering land-bridge that
gave access to the first Mongoloid arrivals——possibly predating those peoples by
as much as 35,000 years.If a
stone-age seafaring people could cross the ocean 50,000 years ago, I wouldn’t at
all be nonplussed to learn of proof that more advanced Chinese junks or
Phoenician ships had made similar journeys in our far more recent history——or,
for that matter, that the ancient flowering of metaphysical thought might
possibly have involved some degree of cross-pollination.Again, that’s merely the potential for
such interaction that I’m not willing to rule out, and otherwise, I fully agree
with the following comment:

>>Certain motifs crop
up time and again in religion and philosophy... without
having to be directly gained from one particular source or
another.<<PMCV#7116

Absolutely,
and both Cari and Tony also echoed my thoughts on this phenomenon (#7126, 7133,
-4).In fact (in a peculiar
synchronicity), not two minutes before reading Terje’s post #7107, I had been
looking at the same bowl he mentioned as pictured in Kurt Rudolph’s
Gnosis and was wondering about the prevalence of “winged serpent” imagery
throughout the world.To go a step
further with the notion of independently occurring ideas, I’d venture that as
“necessity is the mother of invention,” the concept would apply not just to
spiritual innovations but material ones as well.I wonder if that’s what Ernst was
getting at when he said he thinks “being human is enough” to find the
commonalities between us (#7141).If not, I might argue that Tony’s “universal nature of mystical
experience” is part OF our being human.

Anyway, getting back to the question of the East/West “exact
opposite” debate, I stumbled across another post that convinced me that there
wasn’t so much disagreement after all:

>>Sure there are
similarities Klaus... as there are with nearly every religion.
I will even conceed that there are some very interesting
similarities in this particular case, but that does not mean there
are not very important differences as well. . . .<< PMCV#7116

Similarities here . . . differences there——that actually
worked for me until I got back to the post which attempted to explain the
diametrical opposition between the two generalized
philosophies:

>>Besides (or
actually, still related to) these obvious difference, there
are subtle, but very important, differences that I believe many
people actually feel are similarities. For instance, the whole
world as illusion concept is not the same in spite of the fact that
they look the same. In the East we see the admonitions to not take
the world seriously, not to fear, it's illusery nature is quite
literally so. . . .<<PMCV#7136

Hmmmm.Again,
I’m not well-versed in Buddhism OR Vedic Brahmanism, but what I’ve read honestly
didn’t indicate that we should expect to find language employed any less
figuratively than in Gnostic texts.For instance, Winthrop Sargeant offers this from his translation of The
Bhagavad Gîtâ (BTW, for anyone interested, this is an excellent paperback study
edition with original Sanskrit, Romanized transliteration, interlinear literal
translation, prose translation and separate glossary for each
stanza):

Divine indeed is this illusion of Mine made up of the
three qualities,

And difficult to penetrate;

Only those who resort to Me

Transcend this illusion.VII—14

Now, the three qualities referred to are the gunas,
which have been likened to the pneuma, psyche and hyle.All are part of what constitutes the
“material” aspect of Man.In the
previously cited work, this is said with regards to their
nature:

The three gunas—sattva, or
illumination and truth, rajas, or passion and desire, and tamas or
darkness, sloth and dullness—were originally thought, by the Samkhya
philosophers who first identified and named them, to be substances.Later they became attributes of the
psyche.(pg.
331)

Furthermore, the same work says the following of this
particular yogic school of thought:

. . . Samkhya does not
recognize gods or sacrifices.It is
said to have influenced Buddhism.It is known as “the way of knowledge,” and it proposes knowledge as the
principal means of salvation.(pp.
124-125)

Well, there certainly seems to be a real, physical dimension
to that Illusion, and the means taught to escape it sound rather reminiscent of
gnosis.In fact, for the
dialogue-nature of the book and especially the content, I find it difficult NOT
to see similarly expressed thought as in the Gospel of Thomas or Gnostic texts
in general.

I see mention of the Infinite:

Neither the multitude of gods

Nor the great seers know
My origin.

In truth I am the source of the gods

And the great seers.X—2

He who sees Me everywhere,

And sees all things in Me;

I am not lost to him,

And he is not lost to Me.VI—30

…of gnosis:

When your intellect crosses beyond

The thicket of delusion, then you shall become
disgusted

With that which is yet to be heard

And with that which has been heard (in the Veda).II—52

No purifier equal to knowledge

Is found here in the world;

He who is himself perfected in yoga

In time finds that knowledge in the Self.IV—38

…of being caught up in material attachments and
delusion:

When the mind runs

After the wandering senses,

Then it carries away one’s understanding,

As the wind carries away a ship on the waters.II—67

The Lord does not receive

Either the evil or good deeds of anyone.

Knowledge is enveloped by ignorance.

By it (ignorance) people are deluded.V—15

…of gnosis overcoming those attachments:

Out of compassion for them,

I, who dwell within their own beings,

Destroy the darkness born of ignorance

With the shining lamp of knowledge.X—11

The sage whose highest aim is release;

Whose senses, mind and intellect are
controlled;

From whom desire, fear and anger have
departed,

Is forever liberated.V—28

…and of becoming passersby:

He is to be known as the eternal sannyasi [one who
renounces]

Who neither hates nor desires,

Who is indifferent to the pairs of opposites, O
Arjuna.

He is easily liberated from bondage.V—3

For the born, death is certain;

For the dead there is certainly birth.

Therefore, for this, inevitable in
consequence,

You should not mourn.II—27

As for the “certainty” of that last passage, in the same
edition, Christopher Chapple writes this in the forward:

Part of the appeal of the
Gîtâ, both at home in India and abroad, lies in its multivalent
quality:it explicitly advances
numerous teachings, some of them seemingly contradictory, and has been used in
support of various others that have arisen since its composition . . . In this
brief introduction, a sketch of the story line is given, followed by an
assessment of how the many possible construals of the text in fact reflect the
uniquely Hindu worldview that tolerates and in some cases requires holding
together multiple positions simultaneously.(xiii)

As stated before, I certainly recognize that there are
distinctions to be made here, even important ones, but as far as I’m concerned,
the perceived differences between East and West merely arise from different
criteria than would be used in my declaration that Gnostic Christianity were the
“exact opposite” of Orthodox Christianity.

Generally speaking, we don't
see the Gnostic philosopher sitting under a boddhi tree and suddenly going
"viola!".[sic]PMCV#7136

Agreed.At the
same time, I doubt that we would see an Indian philosopher sitting
under a tree and exclaiming, “viola!”

. . . or “pansy!”. . . or “cello!”. . . or for that matter,
even “voilà!”;-)

Gerry

lady_caritas

... different ... much ... the ... Gnostic; ... Will, if you re still reading, you should know that I certainly am aware that you are describing a shift in

> descriptions of "self" or aspects of "self." Defining "self" is a
> philosophical exercise I don't care to get into. lol<<
>
> I do think this defines our central difference better than I did;

much

> shorter and to the point. I see the shift in terms of a change in

the

> sense of self, and you see what I am doing as a philosophical
> exercise. Place chuckle here! If we are speaking to the same
> experiential process, our views of it are of such a different order
> that we have been going in circles. Reminds me of a merry-go-round.
> I'll get off here. Thanks, Alice, for the education on things

Gnostic;

> it's been the most! ----willy

Will, if you're still reading, you should know that I certainly am
aware that you are describing a shift in sense of self based on your
life experience, and I do not see what you are doing as being just a
philosophical exercise. You are making an incorrect assumption most
likely based on my frustration that we cannot seem to come to agree
on a common lingo. And because of that, I don't want to get into a
trap of just general philosophical definition debates instead of
agreeing on a common language for discussion.

Since this is a Gnostic group, I have tried to use Gnostic terms, so
when you read what I say and reinterpret it to your understanding and
vocabulary, sometimes your interpretation of what I have said is
either not understandable to me or it is possibly even skewed. For
instance, when you say, "I think the first problem is that I find the
spiritual self in that place and you find the temporal self in that
place," I don't understand you. "Self in that place?" I could in
return try to translate into Gnostic lingo what you say, but I feel
that is not appropriate. I feel that is your job in order to
eliminate misinterpretation that I might make as a mere translator of
your experience. IOW, if you were indeed interested in whether your
experience relates to classical Gnosticism (which is what our list is
about), it would help to first understand terminology, etc.
Continuing to speak in two different languages and you trying to
guess what our differences or similarities are becomes certainly very
much like a merry-go-round. It would help if *you* could see if your
experience translates into Gnostic terms during discussions in our
group.

In any case, I do enjoy our conversations. Thank you for the
exchange of ideas and experiences.

Cari

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